Postdoctoral Fellowship (07) at Vrije University Amsterdam, Netherlands

As a postdoctoral researcher, you will contribute to the TASICI project (Transformative Adaptation Strategies for Interdependent Critical Infrastructure), a NWO-funded multidisciplinary research programme that brings together researchers, infrastructure operators, and public stakeholders to develop climate adaptation strategies for interconnected infrastructure systems in the Netherlands. The project focuses on major infrastructure corridors, including the Greater Amsterdam Metropolitan Area and the Rhine–Alpine Corridor, and aims to support system-wide prioritisation, resource allocation, and governance for climate adaptation.

Within TASICI, you will work on research activities in Work Package 2, which focuses on the development of adaptation pathways for critical infrastructure systems facing increasing climate risks. You will work closely with infrastructure operators including Rijkswaterstaat, ProRail, Schiphol Airport, Port of Rotterdam and Vervoerregio Amsterdam to combine quantitative modelling, adaptation planning and stakeholder engagement into actionable climate resilience strategies.

Our theory group is a worldwide leader in studying the statistical physics of living systems. We currently have an opening for an Vici funded 2.5-year Post Doc position. In this project, we seek to uncover the fundamental interaction rules that govern collective cell migration—a central biological process underlying development, immune responses, and cancer progression.

We are looking for a highly motivated Post Doc to strengthen our research team in an interactive and
collaborative environment.  Who are looking for candidates interested in combining non-equilibrium statistical physics, active matter physics, and statistical inference/AI to unravel how cell–cell interactions shape collective cell migration. A central goal of the project is to develop and apply data-driven theoretical frameworks that infer interaction rules directly from multicellular migration experiments. We therefore seek a candidate who is excited by rigorous statistical mechanics and data-driven modelling, and who is eager to use these approaches to understand how complex biological functions emerge from interactions between individual cells.

In this postdoc position, you will conduct applied research to address a major knowledge gap on how to scale Nature Based Solutions in an equitable and just way. You will develop research activities in our FairNature project, funded by Biodiversa+. You will work across two sections at IVM: Environmental Policy Analysis and Environmental Economics. You will co-lead our action case on farmyard transitions in the Netherlands.

We will be hiring a Postdoc on a project to investigate Nihilistic Violent Extremist (NVE) groups – that is, radical online groups (consisting of mostly adolescents and young adults) that are notorious for committing a broad range of crimes, consisting of members who appear to be driven less by a clear ideology than by general desires for chaos and online status. You will work within an interdisciplinary research team that includes Prof. dr. Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Prof. dr. Arjan Blokland, and Dr. Elanie Rodermond. You will investigate these issues with sophisticated data science techniques (i.e., statistically analyzing a large volume of social media data). You will present the findings at conferences and publish them in academic journals. The targeted starting date is 1 January 2027 at the latest.

The HFSP-funded project revolves around the concept of Socially Transferred Materials (STMs), which was defined a few years ago as an emerging new field in science: Across animals, organisms have repeatedly and convergently evolved ways to transfer materials between bodies that manipulate or support receiver physiology, fertility, or behaviour. Think of milk, seminal fluid, eggs, mucus, and regurgitates. Despite their ecological importance and applied potential, understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying STM function across evolutionary distant lineages is lacking. This project aims to combine a multitude of -omics and imaging techniques as well as functional studies to work towards deep, large-scale analyses of STM evolution and action. The focus will lie on a range of arthropods, molluscs, and chordates, with the aim to uncover universal STM design principles as well as lineage-specific variants.

As a member of this consortium, you will play a key role in a project seeking to better understand the psychological effects of covert hate speech – that is, online hateful rhetoric hiding behind seemingly neutral language, humor, or irony, designed to fuel radicalization while bypassing content moderation tools and EU legislation. You will work directly with Prof. dr. Jan-Willem van Prooijen, as well as with members of the broader Horizon2020 Proclaim consortium that is coordinated by Dr. Seunghyun Sun (Tilburg University). You will specifically conduct experimental and longitudinal research exploring the effects of covert hate speech on polarization and radicalization. You will report the findings to your colleagues, the broader consortium, at conferences, and publish them as a lead author in academic publications. The targeted starting date is 1 January 2027, although starting earlier or later is possible.